- Ukraine: At least 11 killed in second Russian strike on Kyiv in a week
Source: BBC News [UK state media]
“At least 11 people have been killed in Kyiv following a second night of Russian strikes on the Ukrainian capital in a week, the city’s top military administrator has said. Some 46 people have been injured, including five children, Timur Tkachenko added. Three more people were killed in the wider Kyiv region, emergency officials said. Rescue efforts are continuing at more than 20 locations, Tkachenko posted on Telegram, adding that residential high-rise buildings were hit in two districts. The strikes come on the eve of the Nato summit in Turkey, where Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is expected to hold talks with President Trump.” (07/06/26)
- Bitcoin pops to $63,900, then reverses, as week begins
Source: CoinDesk
“Bitcoin touched $63,882 overnight before retreating to around $62,900, per CoinDesk data. The 24-hour high of $63,900 held briefly before sellers pushed it back down. Thursday’s U.S. jobs report came in weaker than expected, giving liquidity-sensitive assets a lift heading into the weekend.” (07/06/26)
- China: Regime Test Fires Missile in the Pacific for the First Time Since 2024
Source: New York Times
“China test fired an intercontinental ballistic missile with a dummy warhead in the Pacific Ocean on Monday, the first such launch in two years. The missile was launched from a Chinese nuclear-powered submarine and sent a ‘mock warhead’ into the Pacific Ocean, according to a report from Xinhua, China’s official news agency. … The launch came as the leaders of Australia and Fiji announced a mutual defense treaty and a regional security alliance, the latest in a string of agreements Canberra has been striking in with Pacific Island nations widely viewed as efforts to push back against China’s encroachment in the region. Governments in the region were warned of the launch shortly beforehand.” (07/06/26)
- Iran: Regime confirms new service fees for Strait of Hormuz, promises special treatment for allies
Source: Firstpost [India]
“Iran has announced plans to introduce new service fees for commercial ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz, while indicating that countries which supported Tehran during the recent conflict could receive preferential treatment. The announcement was made by Iran’s Ambassador to China, Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli, during the World Peace Forum in Beijing on Saturday. He said Iran was working with Oman on a new framework to manage traffic through one of the world’s most important maritime routes. The proposal comes after a temporary arrangement between Iran and the US under which commercial vessels were allowed to use the Hormuz without charge for 60 days following a ceasefire. It remains unclear when the new system will take effect.” (07/05/26)
- MI: McMorrow Drops Out of US Senate Primary
Source: US News & World Report
“Michigan State Senator Mallory McMorrow suspended her Democratic campaign for the U.S. Senate on Sunday, turning a three-way primary race in a key battleground state into a head-to-head between a moderate and a progressive. McMorrow’s exit leaves centrist U.S. Representative Haley Stevens and progressive public health advocate Abdul El-Sayed as the remaining candidates vying to face Republican former U.S. Representative Mike Rogers.” (07/05/26)
- Hungary: Magyar files constitutional amendment to fire Orbán-allied president
Source: Politico
“Hungarian Prime Minister Péter Magyar on Saturday filed a 12-point proposal to amend the constitution aimed at ousting President Tamás Sulyok and to reduce the influence of the previous administration of Viktor Orbán. One of the key points in the proposal that Magyar announced on social media is the ‘termination of the current president’s term of office.’ Other points include a three-term limit for members of the national parliament, the introduction of a more independent Constitutional Court, and a 70-year age limit for judges to serve, as well as the establishment of a National Asset Recovery and Asset Protection Office, to recover funds misappropriated during Orban’s rule. The current president of the court, Péter Polt, is 70, so the change would effectively end his term.” (07/05/26)
- The United States at 250: An Ode or Goad?
Source: Antiwar.com
by M Reza Behnam“The 250th anniversary of American independence is fundamentally incompatible with a foreign policy defined by overwhelming civilian casualties and global devastation. As the United States commemorates its semiquincentennial with celebratory pageantry, this milestone forces a reckoning. How can a nation built on the promise of ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’ justify its role in upending and extinguishing millions of lives across the Middle East?” (07/06/26)
https://original.antiwar.com/reza_behnam/2026/07/05/the-united-states-at-250-an-ode-or-goad/
- Stop Naming Public Infrastructure After Politicians
Source: Karl Dickey’s Freedom Vanguard
by Karl Dickey“The Donald J. Trump International Airport mandate costs taxpayers millions. Leaders from all parties waste public money on monuments. We must demand infrastructure maintenance instead.” (07/05/26)
https://palmbeachexaminer.substack.com/p/stop-naming-public-infrastructure
- Dear Amerika: A Desperate Plea from a Bastard Daughter
Source: exile in happy valley
by Nicky Reid“You and your big fucking day. Your 250th birthday. Where has all the time gone? Where did all the Indians go? Where have all the flowers gone? It seems like just yesterday you were lynching Turtle Island with your training bra and just look at you now! You have become such a handsome and heinous colossus over the centuries. How many bases is it now? In how many countries? Please accept my sincerest condolences for your recent spate of failed regime changes. You can’t win them all. And hey, you still got to kill most of their children.” (07/05/26)
https://exileinhappyvalley.blogspot.com/2026/07/dear-amerika-desperate-plea-from.html
- Gerrymandering battles: The Colorado front
Source: The Price of Liberty
by MA Rothman“This is the Democrat playbook when they can’t win outright: rewrite the rules, rig the maps, and push through structural changes designed to make their electoral advantages permanent. In Colorado — a state they’ve already been winning — that wasn’t enough. They needed to lock it in forever. The delegation stays 4R-4D, and 𝐭𝐡𝐫𝐞𝐞 𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐮𝐟𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞𝐝 𝐬𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐬 𝐰𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐩𝐩𝐞𝐝 before they could be installed. 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐭 𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐝𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐛𝐚𝐜𝐤 𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐯𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐬 — 𝐞𝐱𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐥𝐲 𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐢𝐭 𝐛𝐞𝐥𝐨𝐧𝐠𝐬.” (07/05/26)
https://thepriceofliberty.org/2026/07/05/gerrymandering-battles-the-colorado-front/
- From America 200 to America 250: A Personal Journey
Source: Chris’s Substack
by Chris Matthew Sciabarra“My journey from America 200 to America 250 encompassed a fifty-year period of deep losses and incredible triumphs. To have survived two emergency surgeries in October 2025, I count my blessings that I am even here to mark the two-hundred-and-fiftieth anniversary of American independence. Quite frankly, given life-long health problems, it was almost inconceivable for 16-year-old Chris to project the possibility of 66-year-old Chris. But these fifty years of living, writing, and thinking about America and its founding document have illuminated a recurring motif in my work. What unites the 16-year-old and the 66-year-old is not merely an appreciation of ideas, but a commitment to understanding how ideas evolve alongside changing contexts.” (07/04/26)
https://chrismatthewsciabarra.substack.com/p/from-america-200-to-america-250-a
- The Beauty Of Online Anonymity
Source: Independent Institute
by Scott Beyer“Social media platforms are full of ‘anon’ accounts these days. Particularly with Elon Musk’s purchase of X (formerly Twitter) and the de-censorship of that platform, many such accounts are dropping explosive ideas—about race, gender, immigration, etc.—from behind the safety of their screens. Some say this is harmful for society—free speech gone too far—while others mock the accounts for being cowardly. But anonymous communication is a time-worn American tradition, providing a useful check to government power while normalizing ideas that needed to be stated and debated all along.” (07/03/26)
https://www.independent.org/article/2026/07/03/the-beauty-of-online-anonymity/
- The Great American Betrayal
Source: The Hill
by John Mac Ghlionn“It wasn’t long ago that a losing candidate would give a dignified, mildly depressing concession speech, lick his wounds and try again in four years. That gentleman’s agreement is dead. Now, losing an election is treated as definitive proof of a deep-state conspiracy, while winning is celebrated as a mandate to crush the opposition. Elections in the U.S. now function less as democratic transfers of power and more like weaponized custody disputes. Supercharging this collective psychological break is the tech industry, which realized early on that rage drives engagement far better than nuance. The algorithms don’t want us to get along. Peace is bad for profit margins. Instead, citizens are all trapped in bespoke digital echo chambers designed to confirm their worst fears.” (07/04/26)
https://thehill.com/opinion/congress-blog/politics/5952390-america-250-years-crisis/
- Why Jason Watson is Wrong, Even if You Agree With What He Stands For
Source: Garrison Center
by Thomas L Knapp“No one forced Major Watson to accept an Air Force Commission. That choice — and the choice to be bound by the UCMJ and by DOD directives — was Major Watson’s and Major Watson’s alone. So was the choice to violate the rules he chose, of his own free will, to be bound by. While I’m on record as noticing that the Constitution doesn’t seem to matter much to those who rule us when those rulers find its strictures inconvenient, one of its features does make a good deal of sense for nearly any social or political system. That feature is requiring that civilians control the armed forces rather than vice versa.” (07/04/26)
- AI and the false consciousness trap
Source: Unherd
by Yanis Varoufakis“The connection with whether Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini or DeepSeek are conscious or not is becoming clear. Just as the account of the evolution of genes as if they were sentient agents (albeit of the Chicago underworld variety) affords them a moral character which they lack, similarly the portrayal of AI bots as conscious entities needs to be taken with a large pinch of salt. Scientifically speaking, all that goes on is that microscopic perturbations yield macroscopic consequences. Their proliferation, or extinction, is an indirect by-product of that dynamic — nothing more. Causality abounds, but teleology, intent or consciousness do not.” [editor’s note: I suspect the only quality unique to humans may be our denial/fear that anything could possibly be like us; AI is just the current scenario in which many people feel the need to find … or perhaps fantasize … differences – TLK](07/04/26)
- Can We Restore the Principles of 1776?
Source: Town Hall
by Mark Lewis“The world (at least by choice) is not going back to the horse and buggy age. We live in technologically advanced societies that have given us many wonderful inventions that make our lives far more convenient, if not always simpler. We credit ‘science’ with these advances, and frankly, that is both good and bad. The good, of course, are the medical breakthroughs, etc. that have aided mankind to enjoy this existence longer and more comfortably. We all should rejoice and be thankful for this. But unfortunately, that has led some people, too many people, to elevate science as ‘God’. Thus, 1776, in all ways and thoughts, is ancient, outmoded history, to be abandoned and forgotten …” (07/04/26)
https://townhall.com/columnists/marklewis/2026/07/04/can-we-restore-the-principles-of-1776-n2678804
- Freddy the World Cup Tourist and Tocqueville’s Hopes for America
Source: EconLog
by Joy Buchanan“In the 1830s, a French aristocrat named Alexis de Tocqueville traveled through the United States and returned home with Democracy in America, a penetrating analysis of a society marked by energetic voluntary associations and a restless spirit of enterprise. Tocqueville admired much of what he saw, but his verdict was not uncomplicated. Near the end of the book, he wrote, ‘I feel full of fears and full of hopes.’ Two centuries later, another European visitor is offering a portrait of America. Freddy (@FreddyLA7), a German soccer fan road-tripping across the country for the 2026 World Cup, has become an enthusiastic chronicler of American life. Where Tocqueville wrote volumes about institutions, Freddy posts photographs and exclamations about Buc-ee’s, Waffle House, and enormous houses. He’s also documenting the kindness of strangers.” (07/03/26)
https://www.econlib.org/econlog/freddy-the-world-cup-tourist
- Pink Flame of Liberty, 07/04/26
Source: Pink Flame of Liberty
“Mises Caucus: Laying Rotten Eggs in the LP’s Nest.” (07/04/26)
- The Political Orphanage, 07/03/26
Source: The Political Orphanage
“George Washington’s Anti-Daddy.” (07/03/26)
https://politicalorphanage.libsyn.com/george-washingtons-anti-daddy